By golly, you're right. There it is. Now I understand. You run a cliché shop.

Looks like time to block your crazy ramblings. No point debating with someone who avoids responding to anything that actually contradicts their bizarre world view and even when you've made such a dumb mistake such as saying I don't show my work online, you still weasel around like a small child, making silly comments and avoid the point being made in the argument. Anyway I can't see anything you post now so I bid you farewell.

I've edited it too much when it looks to me that I edited it. Then I figure others will think the same thing. It has to have the look of the original scene. That all I was doing was capturing reality. Cropping and adjustments to correct lighting, white balance and colors due to the limitations of cameras and film and digital sensors are acceptable to me.

In another area, cloning is too much or combining two pictures such as replacing the sky using a second picture. Even if I could get away with it, (I couldn't because of my limitations with Photoshop), I would know it's fake so I don't do it. How would I explain a scene in my photo to others that I never saw?What would I say when they asked me if it's real? That's my personal compass although I know many others feel every tool in Photoshop is acceptable to use. That's OK too but would consider it photo art not photo reality.

I've edited it too much when it looks to me that I edited it. Then I figure others will think the same thing. It has to have the look of the original scene. That all I was doing was capturing reality. Cropping and adjustments to correct lighting, white balance and colors due to the limitations of cameras and film and digital sensors are acceptable to me.

In another area, cloning is too much or combining two pictures such as replacing the sky using a second picture. Even if I could get away with it, (I couldn't because of my limitations with Photoshop), I would know it's fake so I don't do it. How would I explain a scene in my photo to others that I never saw?What would I say when they asked me if it's real? That's my personal compass although I know many others feel every tool in Photoshop is acceptable to use. That's OK too but would consider it photo art not photo reality.

Alan, Thanks for the comments and I completely agree. Many times people refer to Photoshopping which I don't use. My program is lightroom 4 which is only designed for photos. I've never cloned or added any objects because i'm into enhancing the photo not creating a new picture from what I had originally saw. (new picture meaning adding in a person, an object etc)

Eagleyepro - Here's different sort of before and after set of shots that you may like. I used to have some shots on my site that demonstrated the amount of work that went into some images. And I should do that again as the problem with showing only the finished article is that some people will not appreciate the time and therefore money that goes into producing a good shot until they've seen a plain Jane version.

Eagleyepro - Here's different sort of before and after set of shots that you may like. I used to have some shots on my site that demonstrated the amount of work that went into some images. And I should do that again as the problem with showing only the finished article is that some people will not appreciate the time and therefore money that goes into producing a good shot until they've seen a plain Jane version.

Problem there is that people like to imagine a great snapper does it all in the camera: his genius... if it boils down to later construction, then maybe their own snaps might be workable too; not a nice mental path to encourage. Your fees should be beyond that: they should be what you say that they are, take it or leave it, and because they see that you believe it, I suspect they will take it.

I think you flirt with unnecessary danger by attempting to employ subliminal attempts at justifying the financial issues.

Problem there is that people like to imagine a great snapper does it all in the camera: his genius... if it boils down to later construction, then maybe their own snaps might be workable too; not a nice mental path to encourage. Your fees should be beyond that: they should be what you say that they are, take it or leave it, and because they see that you believe it, I suspect they will take it.

I think you flirt with unnecessary danger by attempting to employ subliminal attempts at justifying the financial issues.

Rob C

There are those, such as Jay Maisel and Antonin Kratochvil, who simply shoot jpeg without any retouching and are considered great shooters. Sorry but I still refuse to call retouching as editing since I am old school.

here is an interview with Antonin Kratochvil, in which he talks about his process.

There are those, such as Jay Maisel and Antonin Kratochvil, who simply shoot jpeg without any retouching and are considered great shooters. Sorry but I still refuse to call retouching as editing since I am old school.

here is an interview with Antonin Kratochvil, in which he talks about his process.

You have no beef with me: editing is nothing to do with retouching, in my book. It was the misuse of the term in the early posts that pissed me off too.

Your book has been out of print and was removed from library shelves for being out of date a long time ago.Us folks from after the stone age like to edit our photos after weeding out the ones we don't like.

Few things dafter that resisting how language changes. Except of course if you object to the correct use of a word like edit. All the definitions of edit if you actually look the word up, had something along the lines of To alter, adapt, or refine especially to bring about conformity to a standard or to suit a particular purpose <carefully edited the speech> <edit a data file>Prepare by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it.as one of the definitions.

Doesn't alter the fact that editing work of whatever kind is not just selecting down as some people inaccurately think and is the reason why photo editors [the software kind] are so named, it's because they allow you to edit images.

Also you got one thing wrong they are not old and new definitions. They are both used currently. Words very rarely have a single specific meaning. It's like insisting *bow* is a greeting and is not decoratively tied ribbon or a weapon or the front of a ship or.....

Problem there is that people like to imagine a great snapper does it all in the camera: his genius... [ if it boils down to later construction, then maybe their own snaps might be workable too; not a nice mental path to encourage. ]

Good examples: they did it in camera and then worked very extensively on the image in their darkrooms. Their 'editing' was done in the field, so to speak.

Except it wasn't. As you even say yourself in the last of your contradictory statements.Were you a contortionist before you did photography?

AA + WES did the same as many photographers people do now. They took a photograph, then went home and did their post production work as we now call it, transforming their images in the darkroom. This romanticising of past masters is a bit bonkers, they simply did the same as we do know only with different kit. Some used darkrooms a lot, others had printers work up their negs and some took slides - today some people use LR/PS a lot, others have photo editors tweak their images and some shoot jpegs. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - the more things change the more they stay the same.

And your insisting on using 'editing' differently from how the vast majority of photographers use it, still won't make your inaccurate definition right. That is not how language works.It's not the 60s any more you know, that's 1860s BTW.

"Except it wasn't. As you even say yourself in the last of your contradictory statements."

I'm still looking, but the contradiction evades me yet.

Yes language changes, for better or for worse, but newspeak doesn't destroy the validity of the tried, tested and universally understood meanings.

As far as I can see, this bullshit is all about the use of the word 'edit'.

Let me clarify my position: to edit, in its photographic sense, always meant to look at the sum total of one's shoot and throw away the crap, and then preset the client with the 'edited' selection from which he would make his final choice, with a little gentle guidance (where possible) from the snapper.

Post-digital, the sellers of software have created so-called editing-suites which are nothing to do with editing: they are about processing and altering images; they are darkroom equivalents and, as such, are really post-editing functions.

You may prefer to use a different language - that's your right. But it doesm't make me wrong, nor you correct: it simply means you just cast your vote within a different political mass. It's a photographic parallel to the way some young Britons speak today, with the accent on certain words where they hope to create a question without actually forming one; where the speech patterns of Friends becomes fashionable and adopted by people for whom such use of language is not only totally inappropriate but actually pathetically funny... in a manner they don't intend. I am so not excited by a Scottish voice speaking New York. Nor Valley.

Post-digital, the sellers of software have created so-called editing-suites which are nothing to do with editing: they are about processing and altering images; they are darkroom equivalents and, as such, are really post-editing functions.

Editing is what it is defined and understood in galleries, museums, and art sphere. Editing and retouching are clearly different in terms of definition and scope of work, and they are what are understood by many, including those jpeg shooters, such as Jay Maisel and Antonin Kratochvil, in my previous example, who simply edit but never retouch their work. Not every software vendor abuses the defintions. For example, PhotoMechanic, which is an editing (not retouching) workflow software that is mostly consumed as the bread and butter by photojournalists, still labels itself correctly as "the Essence of Editing."